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by gardnerhill



Series: 221b Ficlets by Gardnerhill [66]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Books, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prompt Fic, Story: The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 19:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19482664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: The work of evil people can taint even innocent pursuits.





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**Author's Note:**

> For the 2019 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #4, **Nothing So Good As A Good Book: Include a favorite book or work of literature in your entry today.** For today's prompt I used one of my personal favorite books – one that was directly referenced in this particular case.

My loathing for the blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton does not cease though he has been dead for over ten years.

Many might think this anger of mine excessive attention paid to the corpse of a vile parasite who fed, jovial and conscienceless as a grinning hyaena, on the most vulnerable in our society – men and especially women of good name, respectable officers whose private _amours_ were of no-one's concern and did not affect their sterling service, human beings who committed the sin of momentary romantic indiscretion combined with a misguided trust in treacherous servants.

I had never seen nor confronted Professor Moriarty, so Milverton was my first true glimpse into the face of pure evil. Those glass-like eyes, that smile, the light that flashed off his gold-rimmed spectacles, haunt me still.

(I do not regret my foray into burglary and property damage with Holmes; that fire, fed by Milverton's ill-gotten correspondence, saved the reputations of hundreds.)

His murder should have ended the business. But to my horror I discovered his grip still upon my mind.

For soon afterward, I opened my copy of Mr. Dickens' _Pickwick Papers_ – and the illustration of the benevolent and bespectacled Mr. Pickwick, whose likeness to the monstrous Milverton I'd noted when I first saw the man, made me sick, and I closed forever my favourite book.


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